And thus she passed her time, in the strictest self-examination, fixing her thoughts above, and withdrawing them as much as possible from earth. The effect was speedily manifest in her altered looks and demeanour. When first brought to the Martin Tower, she was downcast and despairing. Ere three days had passed, she became calm, and almost cheerful, and her features resumed their wonted serene and seraphic expression. She could not, it is true, deaden the pangs that ever and anon shook her, when she thought of her husband and father. But she strove to console herself by the hope that they would be purified, like herself, by the trial to which they were subjected, and that their time of separation would be brief. To the duke she addressed that touching letter preserved among the few fragments of her writings, which after it had been submitted to Gardiner, was allowed to be delivered to him. It concluded with these words:—“And thus, good father, I have opened unto you the state wherein I presently stand,—my death at hand. Although to you it may seem woful, yet to me there is nothing that can be more welcome than to aspire from this Vale of Misery to that heavenly throne of all joy and pleasure with Christ, my Saviour. In whose steadfast faith (if it may be lawful for the daughter so to write to the father), the Lord who hath hitherto strengthened you so continue to keep you, that at the last we may meet in heaven.”
With her husband she was allowed no communication; and in reply to her request to see him once more, she was told that their sole meeting would be on the scaffold:—a wanton insult, for it was not intended to execute them together. The room, or rooms, (for the large circular chamber was even then divided by a partition,) occupied by Jane in the Martin Tower, were those on the upper story, tenanted, as before-mentioned, by the keeper of the regalia, and her chief place of resort during the day-time was one of the deep embrasures looking towards the north. In this recess, wholly unobserved and undisturbed, she remained, while light lasted, upon her knees, with a book of prayers, or the bible before here, fearful of losing one of the precious moments which flew by so quickly—and now so tranquilly. At night, she withdrew, not to repose, but to a small table in the midst of the apartment, on which she placed the sacred volume and a lamp, and knelt down beside it. Had she not feared to disturb her calm condition, she would not have allowed herself more than an hour’s repose, at the longest intervals nature could endure. But desirous of maintaining her composure to the last, she yielded to the demand, and from midnight to the third hour stretched herself upon her couch. She then arose, and resumed her devotions. The same rules were observed in respect to the food she permitted herself to take. Restricting herself to bread and water, she ate and drank sufficient to support nature, and no more.
On the fourth day after her confinement, the jailor informed her there was a person without who had an order from the queen to see her. Though Jane would have gladly refused admittance to the applicant, she answered meekly, “Let him come in.”
Immediately afterwards a grave-looking middle-aged man, with a studious countenance overclouded with sorrow, appeared, he was attired in a black robe, and carried a flat velvet cap in his hand.
“What, Master Roger Ascham, my old instructor!” exclaimed Jane, rising as he approached, and extending her hand to him, “I am glad to see you.”
Ascham was deeply affected. The tears rushed to his eyes, and it was some moments before he could speak.
“Do not lament for me, good friend,” said Jane, in a cheerful tone, “but rejoice with me, that I have so profited by your instructions as to be able to bear my present lot with resignation.”
“I do indeed heartily rejoice at it, honoured and dear madam,” replied Ascham, subduing his emotion, “and I would gladly persuade myself that my instructions had contributed in however slight a degree to your present composure. But you derive your fortitude from a higher source than any on earth. It is your piety, not your wisdom that sustains you; and though I have pointed out the way to the living waters at which you have drunk, it is to that fountain alone that you owe the inestimable blessing of your present frame of mind. I came not hither to depress, but to cheer you—not to instruct, but be instructed. Your life, madam, will afford the world one of the noblest lessons it has ever received, and though your career may be closed at the point whence most others start, it will have been run long enough.”
“Alas! good Master Ascham,” rejoined Jane, “I once thought that my life and its close would be profitable to our church—that my conduct might haply be a model to its disciples—and my name enrolled among its martyrs. Let him who standeth take heed lest he fall. I had too much confidence in myself. I yielded to impulses, which, though not culpable in the eyes of men, were so in those of God.”
“Oh madam! you reproach yourself far too severely,” cried Ascham. “Unhappy circumstances have made you amenable to the laws of your country, it is true, and you give up your life as a willing sacrifice to justice. But this is all that can, or will be required of you, by your earthly or your supreme Judge. That your character might have been more absolutely faultless in the highest sense I will not deny, had you sacrificed every earthly feeling to duty. But I for one should not have admired—should not have loved you as I now love you, had you acted otherwise. What you consider a fault has proved you a true woman in heart and affection; and your constancy as a believer in the gospel, and upholder of its doctrines, has been equally strongly manifested. Your name in after ages will be a beacon and a guiding-star to the whole Protestant church.”